Tuesday 31 May 2011

Maryland - First Impressions



Hi folks and sorry for the long delay between posts. We spent a month with my mum in Arizona (she's making a really good recovery) then waited for a bit longer in Vegas for our worldly goods to arrive from Australia.

In the meantime, we changed our plans a bit and headed for Annapolis, Maryland, on Chesapeake Bay. This beautiful old city claims to be the sailing capital of the USA, and first impressions bear this out. There are countless small bays, inlets and marinas, and every one of them is choc a bloc with boats. Every street seems to lead down to the water, but on the way it manages to display several beautiful 18th century houses, a great seafood restaurant or two, a bar, a boating supplier of some kind and an unbroken avenue of magnificent trees. There are many layers of history here - early British settlement during the reign of Charles 1 (Maryland was named after his wife), revolution, the establishment of the Union, major battles of the Civil War (in which the state's loyalties were divided). The people of Annapolis have done a brilliant job of preserving, restoring and recording their historic sites.

The history of race relations in Maryland is both tragic and inspiring. Two very famous figures lived here - Harriet Tubman, who was such an important figure in the 'underground railroad' system for smuggling slaves out of the south to freedom; and Frederick Douglass, the great civil rights activist. The state was also home to Patty Cannon, a woman of legendary strength and brutality, who ran a gang of slave-catchers, kidnapping both escaped slaves and freed blacks and selling them back to the southern states. She had secret dungeons in her house, and was so terrifying that she became a kind of bogeyman figure, used by mothers for generations to frighten their children out of bad behaviour or straying too far from home.

On Memorial Day, Terry lent a hand to the women who maintain the Brewer Hill Cemetery, to lower their flag to half mast. We had a really interesting and moving wander around the historic African-American cemetery (of course, like everything else, cemeteries were segregated until the 1960s). Some of the stone markers told terrible stories of lynchings and people hanged for crimes they didn't commit. But it is a peaceful and beautiful place now. One of the custodians told us, "My mama's here, my brother's here, my baby's here, and there's a nice green place waitin for me here too someday."

We're off to Washington DC for a couple of days, then back for some serious sailing and boat shopping.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Terry's Beer Reviews


Note:- most of these websites insist on you keying in your age – there’s plenty of “Prohibitionists” around here still.

Castello
Very nice Italian beer.  Now that both Nastro Azzura and Moretti are owned by major multinational breweries(Peroni by SABMiller, and Moretti by Heineken) Castello is a great successor.  Heineken sold the Moretti plant to Castello.  Nastro is still a great beer, but I think Heineken has rooted Moretti.


Haywards 5000 owned by SABMiller
Very very nice.  Would drink this regularly if available.


Dos Equis Lager  (warned off Tecate by the waiter.)  Circus Circus Las Vegas Nevada


Corona
Despite the sneers from VB & EB drinking bogans, this is still one of the world’s great beers.
Fallback in all restaurants that have limited choice e.g. Coors, Coors Light, Bud, Bud Light.
While on the subject of the world’s great beers, I was pleased to find Coopers Sparkling Ale in the Whole Food Market in Las Vegas, Nevada so I bought a six for Ron.


Sam Adams draft – at Chilis


Oak Creek Brewery 23/April 2011 to 25th April 2011
Got 5 different ones
A-1 Pilsner – excellent.  Not much fizz.  Strong rich caramel.  Only 4.2% alcohol.  Definite keeper.
Amber Ale. 5.0%.  Very nice, clean crisp for an ale.
Nut Brown Ale  5.5%.  Thick & chewy

Landshark Lager
Jimmy Buffett’s lager from Florida.  Nice, crisp. 4.7% (also in a 4.0%, which is getting dangerously close to “light”.)
It’s an Anheuser-Busch product but brewed for Margaritaville in Jacksonville.
I’m biased on this, having been a Parrothead for about 35 years.


Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
From California.  Decent head, caramel taste 5.6%


San Pellegrino Limonata and Aranciata.
Not beers but refreshing lemon and orange drinks from one of the masters of sparkling water.  Actually been owned by Nestles since about 1997.

“San Pellegrino mineral water has been produced for over 600 years.[2] In 1395, the town borders of San Pellegrino were drawn, marking the start of its water industry. Leonardo da Vinci visited the town in 1509 to sample and examine the town's "miraculous" water, later writing a treatise on the subject.[2] Analysis shows that the water is strikingly similar to the samples taken in 1782, the first year such analysis took place.
The earliest existing records show that 35,343 bottles were produced (5,562 of which were exported) in 1899. Nine years later, San Pellegrino was exported to the main European cities, as well as Cairo, Tangiers, Shanghai, Calcutta, Sydney, Brazil, Peru and the United States.”  (Wikipedia)


Barking Frog Grille, Sedona Arizona.

Fat Tire Amber Ale.  Good without being memorably great. 5.2%.  My notes say “Sour caramel taste. Very nice.  No head or bubbles, even for an ale.  Certainly true Belgian style.

Carol had a Blue Moon which she liked but I found a bit fruity (Orange-ish?)  Would be good on a hot day after the beach.  It actually came with an orange slice and that seems to be their website’s suggestion.

Patron Reposado Tequila
I asked for a shot straight after dinner.  What came out was about 3 Australian shots in a salt rimmed glass with a half-lime slice.  Very, very smooth and very potent.  Nice finish to dinner.
Some of this range can cost a lot of money but this is about mid-range – about $8 in the US, which is pricey- probably about $25 in Oz.

Here’s a nice find:
Most of the “whole-food” or “good earth” style supermarkets have a small restaurant section where you can order stuff from the deli or select from bains-marie they have and sit and eat it.  We’ve been trying all the different soups you can get – for about $4 a large bowl, you can get some great quick lunches. It's one of the few ways to avoid massive over-ordering of food.

New Frontiers Natural Market, Sedona Arizona – Turkey Chili soup with organic sesame crackers $3.99 a bowl.  Carol had Spinach & Potato – very good.
Las Vegas Whole Food Market.  Beef and Vegetable soup then on a return visit, plain Vegetable soup.  Very filling, very tasty.
We tried the same trick in a Safeway supermarket but the soup was very ordinary indeed.

Corn chowder for lunch at the Secret Garden in Tlaquepaque Village, Sedona
I agree with the third commentator – nice but I did expect some close-to-the-border heat in it.  Their specialty soup is “day-old soup” – they make it up the day before and let it blend.  All gone by the time I asked for some (12 midday!)  I think people come and have it for breakfast.



The Cracker Barrel chain runs good soups daily also, again for 4 or 5 bucks a large bowl.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., is a chain of "Old Country Stores," each combining a retail store and a restaurant. As of September 2009, the company, founded in 1969 and based in Lebanon, Tennessee, was operating 591 full-service locations located in 41 states in the United States.[1] In 2009, Cracker Barrel was ranked as the top "family dining" chain for the 19th consecutive year in Restaurants & Institutions magazine "Choice in Chains" annual consumer survey.[2] (Wikipedia)


Coffee is genuine garbage in most places – water with something nasty in it.  I think I’ve had better instant sometime years ago.  We have found two places that served proper stuff – a cafĂ©/bakery that specializes in wedding cakes in Sedona (run by a Cajun guy I think) that had superb French pastries that he made as well and a place down in Oak Creek Village.